The Efficiency Expert eBook

“I don’t want anybody ’croaked’,”
replied Bince. “I didn’t tell you
to kill Torrance in the first place. I just said
I didn’t want him to come back here to work.”

“Ah, hell, what you givin’ us?”
growled the other. “I knew what you meant
and you knew what you meant, too. Come across
straight. What do you want?”

“I want all the records of the certified public
accountants who are working here,” said Bince
after a moment’s pause. “I want them
destroyed, together with the pay-roll records.”

“Where are they?”

“They will all be in the safe in Mr. Compton’s
office.”

Krovac knitted his brows in thought for several moments.
“Say,” he said, “we can do the whole
thing with one job.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bince,

“We can get rid of this Torrance guy and get
the records, too.”

“How?” asked Bince. “Do you
know where Feinheimer’s is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you be over there to-night about ten
thirty and I’ll introduce you to a guy who can
pull off this whole thing, and you and I won’t
have to be mixed up in it at all.”

“To-night at ten thirty,” said Bince.

“At Feinheimer’s,” said Krovac.

CHAPTER XX.

AninvitationtoDine.

As the workman passed through the little outer office
Edith Hudson glanced up at him.

“Where,” she thought after he had gone,
“have I seen that fellow before?”

Jimmy was in the shop applying “How to Get More
Out of Your Factory” to the problems of the
International Machine Company when he was called to
the telephone.

“Is this Mr. Torrance?” asked a feminine
voice.

“It is,” replied Jimmy.

“I am Miss Compton. My father will probably
not be able to get to the office for several days,
and as he wishes very much to talk with you he has
asked me to suggest that you take dinner with us this
evening.” “Thank you,” said
Jimmy. “Tell Mr. Compton that I will come
to the house right after the shop closes to-night.”

“I suppose,” said Elizabeth Compton as
she turned away from the phone, “that an efficiency
expert is a very superior party and that his conversation
will be far above my head.”

Compton laughed. “Torrance seems to be
a very likable chap,” he said, “and as
far as his work is concerned he is doing splendidly.”

“Harold doesn’t think so,” said
Elizabeth. “He is terribly put out about
the fellow. He told me only the other night that
he really believed that it would take years to overcome
the bad effect that this man has had upon the organization
and upon the work in general.”

“That is all poppycock,” exclaimed Compton,
rather more irritably than was usual with him.
“For some reason Harold has taken an unwarranted
dislike to this man, but I am watching him closely,
and I will see that no very serious mistakes are made.”